The Perfectionist Who Failed.

I took all the blame for a choice that someone else made, I the perfectionist had FAILED!!!

My reality was being 23 years old with two kids pregnant with my third (that I was not trying for) and to find out that what I thought was my happy life was actually far from it.   I put on a brave face to the outside, keeping it all to myself because the perfectionist inside of me could not allow anyone to believe otherwise. That heart that I learned to protect all these years was breaking and would not stop hurting.  I lost the ability to control it. I would die before I would ever allow anyone to see that weak, pathetic side of me. I put my big girl panties on and tried my best to continue on with life like nothing was wrong. I told nobody.  I was now living a lie. A big giant lie because I was not brave enough to allow anyone to see me vulnerable. I thought at the time this was my only option… What a fool I was.

What I learned over the years is that this secret that I protected would happen to me again. I would have to relive it not only then but all the emotion that I had masked from the first time. I ate my way into a weight I was not proud of. After struggling and feeling like I had lost control of everything and pushing people away in fear they would discover. It was then that I truly became brave enough to decided I had to heal myself (I am still a work in progress) I started with the outside because it was way easier than the mess that was brewing on the inside.

Brave is Stepping onto a scale to see what the actual damage I had done to myself. I actually had to take accountability and I remember looking at myself disgusted.  The brave me stuck that weight into a swim suit to swim laps, to barely making it down and back without having to stop. The brave me went to a gym class with a bunch of beautiful skinnies.  I was humiliated by what I had done to mask the pain inside of me.  This helped me forget about the dying heart inside of me for a while. Six months later I had lost 50 lbs but the inside of me was cracked, flawed and in need of serious repair so no matter what the outside looked like I still hated what I saw. The pride in myself would not allow anyone to become aware of what was really on the inside. I was an insomniac, depressed, and spiraling out of control until the masking finally failed and I cracked. I could not even have someone ask me how I was doing without sobbing. I had become someone is did not recognize. After many years of work. I truly became BRAVE.

Brave is finally realizing that you have a problem and you can’t fix it alone. Brave is accepting that life is not perfect and at times you will fill like you fall short and are inadequate. But something I have learned along the way is that others also feel like this for time to time. That things will go wrong that’s just life. Brave is excepting that its okay to have flaws and not be perfect. Brave is willing to let others see what you have been trying to protect and hide all these years. I am now happy to say that I am in a good place that its possible to overcome the impossible because you were finally brave enough to discover that the real you has flaws, cracks and is not and will never be perfect!

Guest Post by Elise Curtis